When an archaeological team sets to work at Makor, an ancient city in Galilee, it unearths not only shards of pottery but, in James Michener's hands, the story of a people, the Jews.

God must have had something special in mind for the region south and east of the Mediterranean, the "cradle of civilization," for it spawned fierce, troublesome, brilliant and gifted people. . .Persians, Jews, Arabs. . .who gave the world the concept of monotheism and three of its great religions.

Of all these tribes it is the Jews who have had the widest dispersal and made the greatest cultural contributions. Through the characters we meet in Michener's fiction, we understand better how this came to be.

In his signature style of grand storytelling, James A. Michener transports us back thousands of years to the Holy Land. Through the discoveries of modern archaeologists excavating the site of Tell Makor, Michener vividly re-creates life in an ancient city and traces the profound history of the Jewish people—from the persecution of the early Hebrews, the rise of Christianity, and the Crusades to the founding of Israel and the modern conflict in the Middle East. An epic tale of love, strength, and faith, The Source is a richly written saga that encompasses the history of Western civilization and the great religious and cultural ideas that have shaped our world. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii.

Praise for The Source

"Fascinating . . . stunning . . . [a] wonderful rampage through history . . . Biblical history, as seen through the eyes of a professor who is puzzled, appalled, delighted, enriched and impoverished by the spectacle of a land where all men are archeologists."—The New York Times